


My heart stumbles (on things I don't know)

by blue_wonderer



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Doggos - Freeform, Domesticity, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of kissing, M/M, Multi, Pancakes, Season 3 Oliver wakes up in the future, The Future, Time Skips, and also, apparently married, he's very confused, hints of future kids, hurt!Barry Allen, hurt!Oliver Queen, inconvenient alien invasions, set in Arrow 3.01, so much, with two dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 04:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13333974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer
Summary: "It’s amnesia, he decides. It’s got to be. He… hit his head. He’s forgotten the last… however many years of his life. And now it’s the holidays and he’s in what is shaping up to be a generously-sized ranch style house with two beasts for dogs and a…husband… who cooks breakfast and stocks med kits."Or, Oliver Queen somehow manages to trip on a timeline and wake up roughly twenty years into his future.





	My heart stumbles (on things I don't know)

**Author's Note:**

> Set during 3.01/Flash 1.01, hours before Barry calls Oliver for advice after he wakes up from the coma. (Slade has killed Oliver's mom the year before, and now Oliver is homeless and jobless and continues to have Very Bad Days.)

He pitches into awareness with a stranger drooling on his shoulder and he immediately knows that he is no longer in the foundry. He scrambles for a sense of self and position—where’s the threat? The closest cover? Available weapons? He doesn’t waste time wondering _how_ or _why_. He’s been knocked out or drugged enough times in the past seven years, often to wake up to some new horror that would twist up another piece of the _Ollie Queen_ that existed Before. 

He counts the seconds while his mind works out the trajectory of the expected first attack. Nothing happens. The warm body entwined with his, breathing long and even with sleep, is the only other presence he can sense. Wan light filters through tiny slits in the blinds—it’s early morning, Oliver guesses. It had been night when he trudged back to the foundry, doped on vertigo and still smelling fire and ash from the restaurant fire the night before. 

The HVAC, which had been rumbling gently, turns off. 

The world seems hushed and waiting. 

Oliver claws at his memories, tries to reason out the series of events that led him here to this alien place where he’s lying with a stranger in a strange bed. He remembers the past two days. He remembers Steelgrave. He remembers Felicity, the rocket launcher. He remembers carrying her back to the foundry, Roy showing him the GPS tracker. Detective Lance and the lead on Werner Zytle—the new, self-titled Vertigo. The rush of the narcotic through his veins after Zytle hit him, the prickling terror as he looked at his own face ("his greatest fear", like that was supposed to be a _surprise_ to him). Screaming at Felicity to call an ambulance for Lance followed by a long, harrowing stumble back to the foundry. 

Oliver vaguely remembers crashing on the bed Felicity had bought for him after she found out he was sleeping on the floor. He hadn’t bothered to change out of the Arrow armor. He remembers the room tilting, shadows elongating into teeth and hands as he shivered and trembled, pathetic and cold and _weak_. He remembers shutting his eyes against the dark (but that hadn’t helped, it never helped). 

He stirs, cautiously testing his range of motion, swallowing a grunt when a stab of pain in his back halts his progress. Now that he’s aware of it, the sharpness is unrelenting, seeming to grow instead of subside, gnawing across his ribs and up his spine. He doesn’t dare reach behind him to feel it out, too wary that such a big movement would attract attention or wake up the stranger next to him (a fellow captive? An enemy?). Instead, he remains tense and breathes through it, gathers the edges of the pain, folds it up, and tucks it away until he can think past it. 

Shifting again, he feels the pull of adhesive and gauze on his skin. Whatever injury he’d suffered, it’d at least been bandaged and covered. This doesn’t make him feel any more hopeful. ARGUS would kidnap him, beat him down, and tend to the same wounds they gave him. To people like ARGUS, pain and healing were just business. 

He lets another minute stretch and again becomes somewhat mollified that there is no immediate hostile threat. Oliver takes the reprieve to reassess, cataloging his surroundings. 

He’s hemmed in by grey sheets. The pillows are criminally soft. And, perhaps first and foremost, there is a mostly naked and _very male_ someone sleeping on him. 

Their legs are tangled together and Oliver’s arm is numb where it’s laid out underneath the man. The stranger is a furnace, radiating warmth that threatens to enclose and choke him. Oliver elects to try moving his numb arm first, because he rather regain feeling in it before he has to fight. He tries as gingerly as possible to move it, to test the strength of his… unusual bonds. However, the movement stirs his bed partner. The man makes a snuffling sigh that ghosts over Oliver’s skin, drawing out a rush of goosebumps. 

Oliver freezes, not wanting to risk waking up whoever this is—not until he has more of a grasp on… everything. He risks a slight turn of his head. He can’t tell much in the dimness, impressions that are most likely pieces of furniture but seem much more ominous in the shadow and the quiet. But he does see two shapes that are doorways. One might lead to an en suite bathroom—the room he is in resembles a bedroom—and the other probably leads _out_. 

The man grumbles again, shifting restlessly. One hand finds Oliver’s chest, where fingers stroke idly, familiarly, over his skin and scars. Then the hand tucks back between their bodies. 

Oliver grits his teeth, catches a balloon of panic before it can fly away, and starts ticking off possible scenarios: 

\- He’s still on that vertigo trip  
\- He got off the vertigo, faced Zytle again, got his ass handed to him, and is now suffering from some back injury, a probable concussion, and temporary (hopefully) amnesia  
\- Some mind-fuckery courtesy of ARGUS  
\- John _fucking_ Constantine  
\- An unnecessarily intricate and convoluted kidnapping plot somehow related to the Arrow 

Whatever is happening, he has to move fast. Laying in this vulnerable position, injured in a way he doesn’t remember, trapped with someone who is either the enemy or someone he has to protect, is becoming unbearable. And he’s learned throughout the years that the first chance of escape is often the one with the highest success rate. The longer you wait, looking for a better opportunity, the more quickly chances of survival dwindle. 

But renewing efforts to move his arm causes the other man to shift again so soft tufts of hair tickle Oliver’s throat and chin. 

“Shh,” the man murmurs. “Tired. Stop moving.” 

The voice is startlingly familiar and his drive _to run to escape to fight_ crashes confusedly against the part of his brain that is trying to place the voice. He leans away as much as he can, trying to sketch a profile in the poor lighting. It takes him a minute to recall the face, but that’s because he didn’t expect a man he met months ago—a man who is currently in a coma, last he checked—to be in bed with him. 

But it is Barry Allen. Young and pretty with fire in his eyes. Barry is one of the few people who knew he was The Arrow. He’d saved Oliver’s life. Given him his mask. Hard to forget that. 

Bewildered, the identity of his captor/fellow captive deepens the sense of displacement, though it solidifies the theory that this is somehow related to his alter ego. A weight, followed by a heavier one, dips the mattress near the foot of the bed. Oliver coils, ready to fight. Allen brings the sheet tighter around his face. 

“You woke Ed and Beastie,” he croaks accusingly just before a wet nose presses into Oliver’s face, followed by a barrage of canine kisses. 

Oliver makes the noise of a man under siege and tries to wedge a hand between his face and the dog, glimpsing the vague shape of it as it wriggles and pants and licks happily at his hand. The dog then moves to tread all over Allen, who hisses and tries to tuck himself closer into Oliver. 

It’s at this time that the other dog, even bigger than the first, plods up the bed and unceremoniously lays itself across Oliver’s chest and ribs, crushing the breath out of him with a startled “oomph” and a cry of pain. Oliver finds himself strangling on nothing, suffocating on the sense of entrapment, unmoored from all he knew ten minutes ago, hemmed in at all sides by Allen and two big dogs and the sheets which wrap around his throat like a noose and— 

Allen’s hand shoots out and hauls at the gigantic dog. “ _No_ , Ed! Daddy’s hurt,” he rebukes. 

_…Daddy?!_

“They wan’ go ousside,” Allen groans into Oliver’s shoulder. “I’ll take ‘em.” 

“I—no!” Oliver says, jumping on the opportunity to get away and going with his instinct to play along for now. “I mean—I’ll take them.” He doesn’t know what’s out there, but it’s got to be better than drowning in blind panic. 

At the word “outside”, both dogs freeze before leaping off the bed. Nails click against the floors, fading as they careen through the building. 

Oliver feels a rush to the head as he sucks in air, some tension fading. Except Allen is still there, skin searing his. He looks down and Barry’s eyes are fluttering, clearly struggling to stay awake. “You sure?" He manages to draw out between a yawn. "What about your back?” 

“Yeah—I—yeah. I’ll be fine,” he says but Allen's eyes are already closed. 

Oliver swallows, tries to extract himself, a little rougher than before. 

“Allen,” he starts, voice stern but lowered in case someone is listening in. “Allen, let me up.” 

Allen burrows deeper into the bed, snorts. “You pick the weirdest times to role play, _Mister_ Queen.” 

Oliver blinks, dumbfounded. “Allen—” 

Oliver can’t make out much in the poor lighting, but he does see Allen’s eyes finally snap open. “Ollie…?” Allen whispers, reaching up slow so Oliver can track his movement. A hand cups his face and Oliver doesn’t understand the way his chest clenches so painfully at the simple touch. “Are you alright, love?” 

_…Love?!_

“I—" he starts, but thinks better of it, thinks he better take lay of the land before he says anything incriminating. He needs to make sure that Barry is a friend or a victim in this and not an enemy. “Al—Barry—I just need to get up so I can…” he searches for an excuse. “Let the dogs outside.” 

There’s a moment where Barry is quiet and Oliver imagines the younger man trying to peer through the darkness at him. And then Barry lowers his hand and smiles, the wry slash of his mouth apparent in the pale morning. “Okay,” he says, finally. “Be careful. Should probably go ahead and feed them, too.” 

He still doesn’t let go, not fast enough for Oliver, so he finds himself pushing Barry away. He tries to be gentle, tries to emulate the softness with which Barry touched him so as to prevent suspicion. Barry hisses at the shove, briefly and almost as if he’s in pain, but he lets go of Oliver all the faster for it so he doesn’t stay and question it. Instead he swings his feet onto carpeted floor, toes brushing against discarded clothing which he immediately pulls on. By the time he edges out of the bedroom in jeans and a t-shirt that fit him and smell like him, feet bare because he didn’t dare spend another second looking for shoes, Barry’s breath is lengthening once again, though perhaps a little more labored than before. 

He steps into a dark hallway, even darker than the bedroom because there are no windows. He pauses, stretches his senses, but he doesn’t hear any breathing, doesn’t detect footsteps. There are other doors in the hall, all open, all dark. He leans his head into one room, listens. Frustrated, needing to know _something_ about where he is, desperately needing to arm himself with either a weapon or information, he decides to risk turning the light on. 

It’s an innocuous and entirely unthreatening hall bathroom. The room is dressed comfortably but generically in blues and creams. He almost leaves—the shower curtain is open to reveal an empty tub and unless there’s an enemy hidden in the small vanity cabinet, the room is clear—except he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. 

There’s him, himself in the mirror and it’s—it _is_ him, clearly, but—but his hair is a little longer than it was earlier that day and he is grayer at the temples—no, there’s more gray _everywhere_ , peeking throughout his hair, prominent in his scruffy, untrimmed beard. There are noticeable lines around his eyes and mouth. He might be imagining it but he thinks the skin on his face and neck is a shade darker, like he spends more time outside in the daylight rather than skulking around the dark streets of Starling like he actually does. 

He steps back, looks at the shape of his body and—something isn’t quite right, either, but he can’t be sure. He can’t remember the last time he really looked at himself in the mirror, he—he doesn’t like to look, most of the time. He doesn’t like to see the scars, the look in his own eyes. He _knows_ what he is, can feel the _wrongness_ of him tattooed on the flip side of his skin and he just… doesn’t need reminders. So, he doesn’t look at himself in mirrors and he if does, if he has to straighten a tie or to fix a collar, then he takes care not to _see_. 

But something is off. His stomach, maybe, seems a bit softer somehow. Was his skin a little looser around his neck? Were his shoulders a little thicker? His forearms more knotted than before? He looks at his hands. The knuckles and cuticles are dry and cracked. The callouses from his bow still on finger pads. He lifts his shirt—just to check—and the familiar scars and tattoos are still there, the ones given to him by Lian Yu and other places, the ones he reaped as The Hood and The Arrow. They’re more faded, tangled up in other scars he doesn't remember, some pink and shiny with newness. They simply _weren’t there_ before. Just like the years accumulated in his face and hair and—yes, his joints, too. 

Medical tape cradles his sides and he turns, shirt still lifted so he can see the damage. There’s a wad of gauze occupying most of his back and bright red blood seeping through them. 

He finds himself breathing a little faster but he still can’t seem to get in enough air. The edges of his vision fade to black static. 

“Ollie?” A tired voice comes from behind him. He whirls around, fingers curling into fists, weight on the balls of his feet. 

Barry’s leaning against the doorframe, hair flat on one side and sticking up on the other, wearing dark lounge pants and a thick, unbuttoned flannel shirt that looks like it’d fit Oliver better than it fits him. He’s looking at Oliver with concern, sharp eyes quickly casting off traces of fogginess and sleep, that fierce intelligence Oliver had glimpsed all those months ago stirring behind handsome features. He doesn’t miss Oliver’s fists, or the way his weight shifted, but he doesn’t have the decency to be intimidated. 

Oliver waits, almost relaxing despite himself, because this is _Barry Allen_. The harmless kid who saved his life. 

(Except Slade had saved his life once, too. He’d saved Oliver’s life more times than he could count, actually. And even then, he’d—Slade had—) 

“You busted your stitches,” Barry says softly, worriedly, and Oliver feels so _alone_. He’d been hoping that wherever he was Barry would be some sort of ally. He’d hoped Barry would’ve said, _“Where are we? What are we doing here?”_ Or any of the things playing on an infinity loop in Oliver’s own head. But this Barry Allen clearly isn't _his_ Barry Allen. Not quite. 

Barry reaches out and says, “Let me see.” 

Oliver steps back, knuckles whitening. In the full light of the bathroom he can see alarming changes in Barry, too. 

His face isn’t as soft as it was nine months ago. His jaw is stronger, sharper. The lines around his eyes and mouth are fainter than Oliver’s but still there. His hair doesn’t have the gray Oliver’s does but it’s longer and lighter than he remembers. The flannel shirt hangs open, giving Oliver a view of a lithe body with shoulders slightly broader than that of the science geek he first met. This Barry is, somehow, older. Older like Oliver. But that’s… _impossible_. 

“Oh my God,” Oliver breathes, both at the revelation and also because he’s finally noticed Barry’s bare midriff is a ruined mess of scabbed-over gashes, scratches, and ugly purple bruising. 

Barry follows his line of sight and frowns at his own body. “Yeah. Hurts like hell.” Oliver remembers the hiss of pain when he’d pushed Barry away from him in bed. “But it’s better than it was last night, isn’t it? It’s what I get for trying to catch an alien IED with my stomach.” This last part is said ruefully, reproachfully, as he reaches up to rub the back of his neck. 

…IED? 

“ _…Alien?_ ” 

“Wouldn’t be the holidays without an alien invasion,” Barry sighs with a roll of his eyes. 

Oliver’s mind skitters right past “alien invasion” and lands on “holidays”. It’d been _October_. Just what had happened and… he glances quickly at his graying hair in the mirror… and _how long_ had it been going on? 

Barry takes another step forward and Oliver takes another step back. 

Barry’s eyes look him over searchingly, eyebrows crinkled with confusion and hurt. “Oliver, I…” he trails off. “I just want to see how bad the stitches are. I can fix them and stop the bleeding.” 

“I’m… not sure. Your version of first aid usually has unwanted side effects,” Oliver says slowly. Half of it really is in protest, remembering the disorienting hallucinations as a side effect of the warfarin Barry had used to save his life all those months ago. It’s also a test—does this somehow-older Barry Allen _remember_ like Oliver does? If he doesn't share the same memory, would he be an imposter? Or would Oliver be the one with false memories? 

Barry blinks at him, surprised before he puffs up like an indignant duckling. “I don’t think we’re going to need warfarin to fix a few stitches,” he sniffs. “You’re about to bleed out on the floor. Oliver, I promise you. I’m just going to clean it and redo the stitches. You can watch my hands the whole time in the mirror.” The words are… not placating, not soft and compromising. Just simple and factual. Oliver glances in the mirror. Blood is soaking through the shirt and seeping down the waistband of his jeans. 

“I…” Oliver swallows the hesitation, refusing to show weakness. This is a mission, he reminds himself. A mission with parameters, with goals. First, he needs the wound fixed. Then, he needs to find out more about Barry Allen. He needs to figure out where he is and how he came to be here. “Yeah.” 

Barry turns, offering his back to Oliver so _easily_ , a walking target that almost makes Oliver want to attack for fear of losing a future opportunity. But Barry's steps are careful as one arm cradles his stomach, and something like pity and concern tug at Oliver—and also confidence that he can subdue Barry later, if needed. 

Barry re-enters the bedroom, easily finding his way in the dark, and flicks on the light for the en suite bathroom. He immediately heads for the closet while Oliver warily takes in details. This bathroom is much larger than the hall one, painted in creams and browns. This one is clearly utilized more often. There are a pair of jeans and underwear that fell short of the hamper. The shower door is swung open, mineral buildup on the glass door. Deodorant left on the double vanity alongside shaving razors and cologne. There is a toothbrush holder with two toothbrushes—one green and one red. 

The tub is ridiculously large. There is an open bag of scented Epsom salt on the ledge. Oliver thinks he can smell it from where he stands at the door. 

Barry meanwhile is hauling what Oliver initially guesses is a full-on body bag but turns out to be the biggest first aid kit he’s ever seen. Barry goes to heave it on the counter but pauses, wincing. Before he can think about it, Oliver steps into the room and reaches down, places his hand next Barry’s on the straps, and together they get it on the counter. Barry smiles at him. Oliver blinks and looks away, deciding to watch Barry in the mirror instead of head-on. 

“Off with the shirt, hot stuff,” Barry commands as he unzips the med kit. Oliver takes a glance to make sure the contents are safe before stepping out of arm’s reach of Barry to remove his shirt, keeping it in his hands (he can use it as a noose against an enemy, or throw it at them as a distraction, or to redirect an incoming blow, or...) 

Barry makes a face at Oliver’s wound and twirls a finger before patting the vanity counter, indicating that Oliver should turn around and get on the counter so Barry can reach. Oliver does so, slowly, taking in the med kit again, the way Barry washes his hands and puts on sterile gloves before turning a contemplative frown at Oliver’s back. 

“I’m going to clean the area and then do the stitches. Won’t take long,” Barry promises, waits for Oliver’s eyes to find his hands in the mirror, before he slowly reaches forward. The first touch brings a starburst of pain and distress and Oliver can’t help but jerk away. 

“Easy there, tiger,” Barry murmurs softly. “That’s what _you_ get for trying to stop an alien poleaxe with your back.” He reaches again and this time Oliver grits his teeth and lets him. The touch is incredibly gentle as he cleans the wound, the movements quick and practiced. Barry doesn’t speak and Oliver is glad not to have the added sensory distraction, his focus taken up by the pain in his back and closely watching long fingers as they work. 

It seems to take a long time and Oliver’s muscles and joints are stiff and sore from holding the tense position. Barry finishes and tenderly reapplies fresh bandages. He drops a soft, dry-lipped kiss on the back of Oliver’s shoulder, gone as soon as it happens, and Oliver swallows back protests and flinches alike. 

There’s just no goddamned paradigm to follow here, in this strange place, with this strange version of Barry—not one he can make out to protect himself, to _survive_. 

“I’ll get the dogs,” Barry says as he throws away the gloves and old bandages. When the lid to the trash can opens Oliver sees more bloody gauze. He glances at the road burn that is Barry’s stomach and wonders if those bandages are supposed to be from Oliver or Barry. “You should wash off and change.” 

Oliver’s left alone, listening as Barry pads out the bathroom, out the bedroom, and down the hall. 

He cleans off the rest of the blood from his skin and eases into the bedroom, pawing at the walls until he stumbles on a light switch. Light chases away darkness and hulking shadows to reveal what he’d only guessed at before—chest of drawers and a dresser, a king-sized bed, doors to a closet, a large window with a window seat and a chair, a bookcase crammed with books, a huge TV, and two dog beds. Oliver steps over to the dresser, reeled in by the framed photographs. 

There are only a handful of photos, but a whole lifetime he doesn’t remember is hinted in each of them. Most of them are selfies of him and Barry at various ages. One from not too long ago with Barry in a thin shirt and big sunglasses kissing a similarly dressed Oliver—he thinks he glimpses colors that could be sand and the sky—maybe at a beach—but the selfie is too close for him to tell. There are others like that, some taken by either Barry or Oliver, some taken by a third party. 

The centerpiece is an 8.5x11 of them. They are both in tuxes. They’re young, closer to the age Oliver is now. Barry’s got a split lip in it and Oliver has a cut on his eyebrow. Oliver’s hands are on Barry’s face and they’re close—heads tilted like they’re about to kiss or they just finished kissing. Barry’s eyelashes seem incredibly dark, his eyes extremely bright, and Oliver—the joy on his own face startles him as much as suddenly seeing himself twenty years older. 

The Oliver in the photo has a wedding ring. He blinks, looks down on his hand for the first time, feeling foolish for just noticing. 

He’s still wearing the ring. He stares at it, takes it off, sees the tan line and looks back to the photo, trying to figure out how long he’s been wearing it. He turns it over in his fingers. It’s thick and heavy, worn with a few scratches. There’s something engraved on the inside. 

_Chosen_

Apparently… apparently, he went to sleep on a vertigo trip, alone and afraid in the foundry when he was twenty-nine years old and woke up years later, married to a man—to Barry Allen. 

(It’s got to be a dream, he thinks, throat tight as he thumbs the curve of the golden ring. No one would _choose_ him if they knew him.) 

He opens a drawer, finds clothes sized for Barry, and tries other drawers until he finds clothes more suited for himself. He wavers, thinking of Fairies and accepting gifts (which is both a thought and a threat he’d never had to account for before he met John _fucking_ Constantine). He decides that he doesn’t know enough about _that_ to spare paranoia over it, and dresses in a clean pair of jeans and a soft long-sleeved shirt. He finds boots and goes ahead and puts them on in case he has to run. 

He makes his way down the hall which opens into a large living room. There’s a huge leather couch covered in about ten different blankets and even more throw pillows, all mismatched, some well-worn and faded. There’s a frankly oversized Christmas tree with twinkling multi-colored lights and a mish-mash of ornaments—some fancy and gleaming, some cut-out paper snowflakes with silver glitter, some made out of pipe cleaners and cotton balls. Moira Queen (and doesn’t it ache to think of her, of her beautiful at Christmas with her elegant gowns) wouldn’t have been caught dead with such a tree, but Oliver finds himself admiring the colors and its personality. 

There are big windows around the front door and through them he can see clouded daylight and heaps of white snow on the ground. He looks out the window, feeling the cold on his face without even touching it. His view is limited but he sees trees and open grounds. He doesn’t see any other houses. The familiar crowding of Starling is completely gone. 

He reaches out but the doorknob is cold to the touch. He grits his teeth (he’s spent the better part of five years on an island in the North China Sea and he just... still fucking hates the cold) and decides to go out after he finishes exploring the house. 

Oliver turns around and wanders to the unlit fireplace. Empty stockings hang from the mantle. “Oliver” is embroidered on one. The others say “Barry”, “William”, “Don”, and “Dawn”. There are no presents under the tree but two big black trash bags stuffed with wrapping paper, like all the presents had been opened and the trash hadn’t been taken out yet. 

The mantle features even more photos than upstairs. There’s only one photo of Barry and Oliver alone together. The rest of the shrine seems to be dedicated to everyone else on earth. There are photos of people he knows. Sara and Laurel Lance. Digg and Lyla. Thea. There are more photos of people he doesn’t know. A younger man with brown hair, perhaps in his twenties, reoccurs in almost every photo. In one frame, Barry and Oliver stand on either side of the young man, who's dressed in a cap and gown and holding up a university diploma. His wide grin mirrors Oliver's. Photos of a black girl and boy occur just as frequently. These two are younger by a few years, maybe in their teens, and share enough facial similarities and expressions to be twins. One photo has the twins with their high school diplomas. A beautiful black woman is between them, arms slung around their shoulders, kissing the young boy on the cheek. The twins are lighter-skinned than her, but resemble the woman enough that they might be her children. Barry and Oliver crowd in on the trio on either side with proud, dopey smiles. He picks up another photo of all of them—Barry and himself, the brown-haired young man, the twins, and the woman. He unlatches the frame and pulls out the photograph, flipping it over. 

_Barry, Iris, William, Dawn, Don, and me — Family picnic, 2031_

It’s in Oliver’s handwriting. 

There’s some low humming coming from the next room over, cut off by an abrupt curse and followed by a ruckus that sounds like a baboon let loose in a kitchen. Oliver sets down the photo and eases into the next room just as Barry finishes tripping over one of the dogs while wrestling a pan into the kitchen sink. 

“Beastie!” He fusses at the dog he tripped over—a sandy female with a long body that reminds Oliver more of a dingo than anything else. “You’re no better!” Barry says, turning his ire on the other dog, who’s laid out in the middle of the kitchen. This one is massive, dark, and heavily scarred around his muzzle, neck, and shoulders. It’s some sort of mastiff breed, but hell if Oliver can tell what kind. 

Barry reaches out with his foot and rubs the big dog’s tummy, completely contrary to snappish words. The big dog—Ed, Barry had called him earlier—huffs contentedly and spreads out even further, almost taking up the entire kitchen floor. 

“They’re both spoiled and it’s _your_ fault,” Barry declares, glaring accusingly at Oliver even while he reaches to the counter, plucks up a glass jar of dog treats, and proceeds to give the dogs two each while making baby faces and crooning, _“who’s a handsome boy?”_ and _“who’s a good girl?”_. Oliver raises an eyebrow as the two dogs fawn over Barry in return, winding around his legs and licking at his hands and fingers. Barry laughs before shooing them out of the kitchen. 

Barry smiles at Oliver, washes his hands, and returns to his tasks in the kitchen, humming again while he moves. He reaches up into the cabinet and Oliver takes a stolen moment to observe him. The tilt of strong shoulders, the line of his back… the curve of his ass (he can’t help but look, now that there’s evidence that they’re _married_ ). 

“No more Christmas cookies,” Barry says without looking at him. “I ate a snack while I started on breakfast.” 

Oliver’s eyes wander down to big, empty Christmas tins with crumbs scattered at the bottom. 

“Did you take any medicine for your back?” 

“Yes,” he lies, because he doesn’t want Barry to give him medicine he can’t trust. 

“Liar,” Barry says, easily, but doesn’t force the issue. He pours batter on the fold out griddle, takes out butter, milk, and orange juice from the fridge, and places them on the counter next to syrup, honey, powdered sugar, and various colorful candies. Barry cracks open the stove and Oliver catches a waft of grease and bacon that mixes in with the scent of the coffee brewing on the counter. 

Overwhelmed, he warily sits on one of the padded stools that’s pulled up to the kitchen island. Barry eyes him over his shoulder, frowning slightly, his whole body telegraphing “worried!”. But he doesn’t say anything, just flips pancakes into a pan which he also places in the oven to keep warm. He walks over to Oliver, who tries not to tense at the approach. His eyes are drawn to the ring on Barry’s finger, an exact match to his own. 

He wonders what’s engraved on the inside of Barry’s ring. If it says _“Chosen”_ like his or if it’s something else. 

It’s amnesia, he decides. It’s got to be. He… hit his head. He’s forgotten the last… however many years of his life. And now it’s the holidays and he’s in what is shaping up to be a generously-sized ranch style house with two beasts for dogs and a… _husband_ … who cooks breakfast and stocks med kits. 

“Oliver?” Barry asks, suddenly close, like a movie skipping a scene, or a scratch on a record in a record player (maybe he is dreaming, after all). He reaches up, Oliver flinches. Barry hesitates, waits, and when Oliver doesn’t move he frames Oliver’s face with his hands. He rubs his thumbs across Oliver’s cheeks, the gesture profoundly compassionate. This close, Oliver can't help but study the horrible bruises on Barry’s stomach. Pretty hands, elegant and smooth and so unlike his own, drop down to his shoulders. Barry’s smile is sad. “What’s wrong?” 

“I…” He wonders if he should tell Barry he doesn’t remember the last however many years of his life. That he hadn’t thought of marriage since the long, lonely nights in the cold darkness of Lian Yu. That he doesn’t know why he married a man and how it came to be Barry Allen. He wonders if he should tell Barry that his touch makes him want to lash out, to hurt, to defend, while at the same time he wants to say that he doesn’t remember the last time anyone touched him like this and he just wants to melt into it. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” he confesses. 

Barry frowns, brows crinkling adorably. “Gonna have to be a little more specific,” Barry says. “Is it the kids? I’m pretty bummed that we won’t be spending New Year’s Eve with all of them, either. William’s been doing his own thing for a couple of years now, but now Don and Dawnie…” He makes a face. “All my babies are growed up,” he mourns. 

Oliver’s not even sure if he’s about to hyperventilate at the thought of _having children_ or at the possibility that he _forgot his own children_. Something of the anguish he’s feeling must register on his face because all of a sudden Barry drops a kiss on the top of his head and steps closer to the stool, between Oliver’s legs. His arms tighten and bring Oliver into him until Oliver’s head is pressed lightly against Barry’s bare chest. Barry’s hand moves up, Oliver tenses _his neck is exposed how could he be so—_

Fingers run gently over the back of his head, nails briefly scratching against his scalp, before massaging the back of his neck. 

He thinks he can hear Barry’s heart beating. It’s alarmingly fast. The younger man shudders when he breathes in and when he talks it sounds like he does so through a throat tightened with emotion. “I know I just saw them yesterday but—but it’s not exactly the same, what with them being in potential mortal peril during an alien invasion or whatever." He clears his throat. "Anyway. I know I should be better at letting them be their own selves but—but I miss them, yanno?” 

And Oliver _doesn’t_ know. He doesn’t _have_ kids, doesn’t remember them, doesn’t know what it feels like to have tiny people depending on him. He has a little sister, a brother he failed, a mother who sacrificed herself for a broken son. He has a team. He doesn’t deserve any of them but he so desperately needs them just the same. So, he doesn’t understand about letting people go. He’s tried, before, but he’s too weak and keeps reeling them back in. 

_Play along until you know more._

That’s what he tells himself he's doing, anyway, as he wraps his arms around Barry’s tapered waist and breathes him in deep. The soft flannel of the shirt he’s wearing brushes Oliver’s face, smelling of both Barry and Oliver. 

“You don’t need to be better at anything,” Oliver says, feeling like it’s the wrong words. “It’s OK to miss them.” 

Barry’s still and quiet for some time and Oliver wonders if he gave himself up, revealed too much of his ignorance. Part of him almost wishes he did—he wants to break this farce, he wants answers, wants to know the bad news, wants to know what he’s dealing with. The survivalist part of him keeps waiting, keeps looking for the enemies, for the trick, for the deceit and betrayal. 

But there’s just soft, dry lips on his temple. “Brave words from the man who, just three days ago, was moping over the curling iron Dawnie left behind,” Barry murmurs wryly. 

The doorbell rings then. The dogs bark, nails clicking as they crash like errant tanks through the house toward the front door. Oliver tenses, hands falling to his hips, searching for a weapon he doesn’t have. 

“Easy, tiger,” Barry whispers with another kiss and a pat to his back before he steps away. “It’s probably Cait.” 

Barry heads toward the front door. Oliver grabs a kitchen knife and cautiously trails after him. 

On the other side of the door is another vaguely familiar face. This one he met just a few months ago at STAR Labs in an attempt to stop Deathstroke. Like Oliver, like Barry, this version of Dr. Caitlin Snow is older. Her soft curls bounce just above her shoulders now and her hair is a white as pure as her namesake. She’s still slim—maybe thicker across her arms and shoulders than Oliver remembers, but he met her so briefly he’s not sure. She’s dressed casually in jeans, boots, a thin sweater, and no coat and doesn’t look the least bit bothered by the flurry of snow whirling madly behind her. 

“Cait!” Barry cheers, pulling her in for a hug. Oliver quickly hides the knife behind his back. 

“You saw me last night, Barry,” Dr. Snow says fondly, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a friendly kiss on the side of his cheek anyway. “Hello, Oliver,” she greets from around Barry’s shoulders. Oliver nods. 

“But that’s so long for me,” Barry laments. 

“Oh,” Dr. Snow says, something knowing shifting behind her eyes as she smiles kindly. “You’re a sad puppy about the kids this year, huh?” 

Barry drops his mouth open. “I’m not a puppy!” 

Dr. Snow reaches up and pats his messy bedhead. “Of course, Barr.” 

Barry makes a pained noise, shoulders slumping. “I shouldn’t ask, because you’re so rude, but do you wanna stay for breakfast?” 

Smile lines fan out at the corner of Dr. Snow’s eyes. “Maybe next time, Barr. Just here to check up on you and then I have to go.” 

“New godchild to spoil?” Barry asks with a knowing grin as he turns, easily wrapping an arm around Dr. Snow’s shoulders as he leads her inside. 

“It seems like it’s a year to change up a few traditions for both of us,” Dr. Snow responds and laughs when their forward motion is finally halted by the impatient dogs. Beastie is a wiggling, happy mass of fur, bumping excitedly into Dr. Snow’s legs. Ed, meanwhile, sits down politely and offers her his paw with the utmost gravitas. Dr. Snow very seriously reaches out and shakes it. Thus acknowledged, both dogs trot to a pile of blankets and bedding in the corner. 

“Hey,” Barry stops to run a hand down Oliver’s shoulder. “Could you keep an eye on breakfast?” He doesn’t wait for a response before heading past the kitchen with Dr. Snow. 

Tempting as it is to spend some time alone to process, to gather intel, he’s hardly going to let the only other people he’s met in this strange place out of his sight. He quickly shuts off the oven, conceals the knife (and picks up two more), and falls a few steps behind Barry and Dr. Snow just as they reach an innocuous blank wall right next to a laundry room. Barry casts an affectionate eye roll at him as he reaches up and places his hand on the wall. 

And the wall sort of… _blinks_ to white and then _flutters apart_ , revealing a small, reflective room that reminds Oliver of an elevator car. Barry and Dr. Snow step into it without hesitating and Oliver only takes a moment where he feels the reassuring weight of the knives on his person before he follows. He’s proven right when Barry reaches up and presses a button. The opening closes again with less fanfare and the elevator lowers briefly—it’s either fast or they only go down one or two floors—before opening again. 

“Are you feeling dizzy at all?” Dr. Snow is asking Barry as they step into a… well, it’s like a bigger and brighter version of the foundry, Oliver supposes. It spans out, easily the same square footage as the house above them. To the right side is a computer set-up similar to what Felicity uses. On the other end is a cluster of rooms—labs and medical rooms, it looks like—set off by glass walls. And to the left… 

“Nah, I’m good,” Barry is saying. “Had way worse. You know you didn’t have to come out here—it’s New Year’s Eve!” 

“I think I’ll decide what I have to do, Barry,” Dr. Snow dismisses. “How’s urinating? Is it painful? Does it have a pinkish tinge to it?” 

“Cait- _lin_ ,” Barry groans. 

Their conversation drifts away from him as they head towards the labs—Oliver can make out a few hospital beds, a MRI machine more advanced and sleek than he’s ever seen, and other equipment he’s not sure he has a name for. He tries to keep an eye on them, tries to keep them in his range of hearing, but it all sort of blanks out for a minute as he numbly walks toward the left side of the room. 

He finds himself moving among a gauntlet of… well, of _costumes_. Displayed on pedestals, encased in glass like in the foundry, are various manifestations of costumed armor reminiscent of The Arrow. Oliver immediately picks out the Black Canary outfit Sara wears, and Roy’s red hooded Arsenal armor (except this one has a distinct feminine cut to it). There’s more, like an all-white one set up next to Black Canary. 

Slightly separate from the others, positioned closer to a weapons display, are two other sets of armor. One is The Arrow—slightly modified with short sleeves but complete with a bow and set of arrows that are entirely unfamiliar to Oliver. Beside The Arrow is a red armor with a cowl instead of a hood and a lightning emblem on its chest. 

He blinks, shakes his head in an attempt to dispel this weird dream, and steps away from the armor. He makes his way closer to Barry and Dr. Snow. Barry is shirtless, laid out on the hospital bed while Dr. Snow studies test results that are just… hanging in the air instead of on a computer screen and Oliver has only ever seen technology like that in _science fiction movies_. 

“Well, so far your vitals seem normal…” Dr. Snow trails off. 

“See? I’m fine,” Barry smiles and moves to sit up. Dr. Snow places a hand up and Barry stops mid-motion with wide eyes. 

“You move before I do a tox screen and ultrasound, I’ll freeze you to that bed.” 

Barry clears his throat and lies back down. 

“That’s what I thought." And then, only a little more gently she adds, "You had close contact with an unidentified alien object, Barry. It got in your bloodstream. You know we have to take precautions.” 

Barry eyes Oliver with big puppy eyes as he circles closer to the pair. He opens his mouth. 

“Oliver won’t save you,” Dr. Snow interrupts without looking away from her work. “Because he knows I have to check his back next.” 

“No—” Oliver barks, breaks off when both pair of eyes look up at his tone. He tries to smile to cover up the blunder. “Barry cleaned and re-stitched it an hour ago.” 

Dr. Snow studies him measuredly and he thinks that her eyes are lighter—bluer, maybe—than he remembers. “Fine,” she decides. "The tests from last night should suffice. We should check again in a couple of days, though." 

_“Traitor,”_ Barry mouths. 

Oliver can't help the small smile the quirks at his mouth as he wanders back out to an adjacent room. The room is more a workroom than a lab with various mechanical implements and computers. There’s a workbench and on top of it is a heap of torn and dirty red leather—no, he glances back to the red armor on display next to The Arrow and back to the workbench. The heap of material is another set of red armor with the lightning symbol on it. There’s a hole where the torso should be—frayed ends melted together from some incredible heat. Oliver smells it, suddenly. Burnt fabric. The sulfuric tinge of stale smoke. Blood. 

His eyes go from the suit to Barry, and the riddle of bruises and cuts on his stomach. 

Dr. Snow is paying attention to drawing blood from a pale wrist but Barry’s eyes are on him. He smiles at Oliver and mouths, _“I’m okay.”_

Before Oliver is consciously aware of it he’s beside Barry, standing over him, studying his stomach—the bruises are more faded that just an hour ago, some cuts have simply _disappeared_. He glances back to the red armor and thinks _no one could survive that—was that supposed to have just happened yesterday?_ Long fingers wind in his, pulling his attention back down to worried eyes. 

“Barry?” Oliver asks, and he’s asking so much more than that. _What’s going on? Why am I here? How could I have forgotten?_ And, surprisingly, _Please be OK?_

“Just… kinda hate needles,” Barry says softly, squeezing his hand. “You’d think I’d be used to them.” 

“It doesn’t always work that way,” Oliver finds himself saying. He rubs the thumb of his other hand over Barry’s knuckles and fingers. No scars. No callouses. Barry looks up at him, his smile so bright that Oliver finds himself unconsciously sinking further into the role he's supposedly playing. 

“I’ll stay,” he promises. “This won’t hinder your tests, Dr. Snow?” 

Dr. Snow’s head snaps up to him, curls fluttering over the sharp line of her jaw, and her eyes are so blue they almost glow. Oliver knows they weren’t like that when he met a younger Dr. Snow just a few months ago—he would’ve remembered the uncanniness. He feels the tension in the room thicken, lets one hand drop from Barry’s so it’s closer to a hidden knife. 

Belatedly, he remembers that Dr. Snow has been calling him “Oliver” and Barry “Barr”. Whoever she is to him now, in this form, in this time, they’re probably on a first-name basis. 

“Caitlin’s done with the really embarrassing and invasive ones now—right, Cait?” 

Dr. Snow’s blue eyes flicker down to Barry’s. She waits, like she’s trying to read something in Barry’s face, then she blinks and returns her attention to clearing away the ultrasound machine and setting up a truly hazardous amount of IV bags. “It’s fine, Oliver, you can stand there,” she says, her smile cautious. She turns her attention back to Barry. “You’re still really low on your nutrients, Barr. Let these finish and then you can go back upstairs, eat breakfast, and _rest_.” She sends a not-so imperceptible look at Oliver. “Doctor’s orders.” 

“You’re the best, Cait,” Barry grins up at her. 

Dr. Snow—Caitlin—Dr. Snow lingers with them until the IV bags are done. It doesn’t take too long, but the minutes drag by for Oliver. He tries to pay attention to their idle conversation, but it’s mostly about a TV show he doesn’t get the reference to and names he doesn’t know—a “Jax”, a “Lilly”, and a “Martin”, the latter of whom is spoken of fondly and in the past tense. Barry talks about the names he threw out earlier—Don, “Dawnie”, William—and a woman named Iris a lot. 

“You guys need to think more seriously about retirement,” Caitlin says softly as she checks the bags. “I think there are more than enough people to handle the job nowadays.” 

“We _are_ retired. We just provide a base of operations when needed.” 

Caitlin looks pointedly at Barry’s bruises. 

“We're retired except for special occasions,” Barry amends. “An alien invasion counts as a special occasion.” 

_Alien invasion._

“You guys took out a drug ring two weeks ago.” 

“Special occasions.” 

“Really? I heard it was run by small-timers. And that it was in a city approximately four hundred miles from here.” 

“ _Special occasions._ ” 

Caitlin frees Barry of the needle and IVs and pats his arm. “See? That wasn’t so bad.” 

Barry squeezes Oliver’s hand again and Oliver helps him get to his feet. Despite the nutrients, Barry seems a little paler than before, eyelids half-mast and tired as he slips on Oliver’s shirt again and buttons it up. Barry and Caitlin easily work together to shut down the lab and machines before walking out together, Oliver eyeing The Arrow suit and the other armor as he leaves. 

Caitlin kisses Barry’s cheek at the door and Barry envelops her in a huge hug that has her laughing. “Be good, you two,” she says softly as she leaves. “Happy New Year, guys. I hope you feel better, Oliver.” 

And then she steps into the snow, closing the door behind her. 

“What did she mean by that?” Oliver asks, staring at the closed door. 

Barry turns and heads toward the kitchen, tossing a non-committal grunt in his wake. “Feed the dogs?” 

Summoned by the magic words, the dogs careen from their nest. Beastie crashes headfirst into Barry’s legs. Oliver quickly reaches out, catching Barry by the elbow before he can topple. Barry doesn’t seem to mind in the least and quickly changes to a string of baby talk as he rubs at Beastie’s sides and back. 

Ed—monstrous and scarred—almost lazily raises up on his hind legs and places his gigantic paws on Oliver’s shoulders and gives him a doggy grin before licking him in the face. 

“Ugh,” Oliver says, suitably appalled. 

Barry gets free of Beastie, who’s now winding around Oliver’s legs, and disappears in the kitchen, laughing all the way. It takes Oliver some time to get free of Ed’s clutches and even longer to figure out how to walk without tripping over Beastie, but eventually he makes it back to the laundry room area where he’d spied dog dishes and kibble before he'd _taken a hidden, futuristic elevator down to an underground lair_. 

There’s a six-foot long plastic tub full of kibble and two bowls. Beastie happily licks at Oliver's hands and elbows while he works, and Ed mostly acts like the world’s largest road block. They fall upon their food happily and Oliver refills their water dishes. Then he wanders slowly back through the living room, morbidly curious at the pictures. Upon a second look he picks out more photos that have Dr. Snow and Cisco Ramon in them. 

“You better get in here before I eat it all!” Barry calls suddenly, breaking the spell. Oliver moves back into the kitchen where he sees a pile of pancakes and bacon—enough to feed four or even six people rather than two. Barry’s already eating, his pancakes piled high and garnished with syrup and sprinkles and whipped cream. Oliver winces at it as he sits across from him. He eyes the spread, trying to reconcile the probabilities of poison or drugs with his sudden and deep hunger. 

In the end he picks two pancakes with just butter and a few slices of bacon. Barry rolls his eyes at him and piles six more pancakes on his suddenly empty plate, adding even more toppings. 

They sit in silence for the most part. Barry’s reading from a paper-thin screen, flicking through headlines too fast for him to actually read them, except he keeps commenting idly on some of the articles. 

Oliver takes the time to study Barry. 

He follows the crest of cheekbone to the curve of jaw and slope of his neck, back up to count his eyelashes, lingers on a smattering of freckles. His shoulder is lost in Oliver’s shirt but his eyes fall to a hint of collarbone down to a bony wrist and long fingers. 

Whether or not this is real or a dream, Oliver finds himself wondering _why_ a man—why Barry Allen. It’s not that he’s unused to these… leanings towards men. But he’s repressed them most of his life and thought he generally preferred women anyway. And so. Why not Laurel? Or Felicity? Or, hell, even Sara? 

Barry looks up at him then, the color of his tired eyes indescribable. He blinks, an unsure smile creeping across his face. “What?” 

There are rainbow sprinkles stuck to the corner of his mouth. 

Oliver reaches out, unthinking (he’s not simply _playing along_ any more), cradles Barry’s jaw with his fingers, and brushes the sprinkles off with his thumb. Barry’s cheeks pink ever so slightly as his tongue peeks out, leaving behind wet lips and… 

_oh_

Oliver averts his eyes back to the food. What he’d just done had been… so stupid and sloppy. Playing along is one thing but that… he glances up to see Barry watching _him_ from beneath his lashes and suddenly it’s so… _illicit_. He’s flirting with another man—an older man, technically. His eyes drop down to Barry’s hand where his ring gleams. A man who is married. 

Barry seems to incompletely read his thoughts because he reaches out and runs his fingers over Oliver’s left hand, over _his_ ring. The touch is shy and warm and _promising_ , sending a rush through his body. 

Up until now Oliver has felt himself the epicenter of some scheme, of some trick or illusion designed to hurt him or use him. Now, in this one moment, he’s the voyeur of someone else’s private moment. Admiring someone else’s husband, touching him, aching for more of this—whatever this is. Aching for more pancakes and bacon and quiet days with the snow falling outside and two smelly dogs vying for their attention. Aching for more secret looks and knowing embraces and gentle touches that zing with the infinite promise of more. 

Aching for more red lips and blushes and soft skin and just more _Barry_. 

Barry finishes, gets up, kisses him passingly, domestically, and starts at the sink and dishwasher. Oliver finishes and tries to help in the kitchen, sticking to rinsing off the dishes before handing them to Barry for the dishwasher so as not to make any obvious missteps. But he needn’t have worried—this Barry is either a really good actor or, more likely, bone tired. His movements are sluggish, face a little drawn, and he doesn’t seem to notice any of Oliver’s clumsiness. 

“Bed?” Barry asks as he closes the dishwasher and tosses a checkered dish towel on the counter. 

Oliver wants to say no. He wants Barry gone so he can do more reconnaissance, gather clues. Maybe even leave the house and go to Starling. See if he can find Thea. Digg. Felicity. Lyla. He wants time to study the photos, to dig through the drawers, to revisit the foundry downstairs. He needs intel. He needs proof that he’s had amnesia or that this is some sort of trick or dream or illusion. And if it is a trick or set-up, he needs to find a way _out_. 

But his back hurts and he’s also very, very tired. He’s stayed awake longer before. He’s had to. And yet, for some reason, the way his belly is full, the way the house is warm, the soft light in the kitchen, the slow tilt of Barry’s head as he looks at him with hazy, sleepy eyes seems to sort of drag him into… complacency, maybe. 

Besides, he fell asleep and woke up in this crazy world. Maybe falling asleep would mean he’d wake up _back_ to where he started. Or maybe when he wakes up again he’ll _remember_. 

In the end, he doesn’t really know what weakness lets Barry wrap his fingers in his and lead him toward the bedroom. But he goes anyway. 

Barry unbuttons his shirt. He does it casually, he’s not even looking at Oliver, and yet Oliver’s eyes follow every inch of bared skin, the play of muscle, the way his spine curves, the dip of his lower back, the jut of his hip bones. The bruising has almost completely faded, leaving behind a creamy stomach. 

He should look away. But he doesn’t. Be this farce or dream, this—Barry—is _his_ for now, so he looks. 

Barry catches him looking and gives him a saucy smirk that really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. “Thought you were tired,” Barry teases lowly 

Oliver swallows. “I can still look, can’t I?” 

Barry draws closer and Oliver finds himself inexplicably nervous. But Barry just kisses him lightly on the cheek and passes him by, patting him proprietarily on the ass. “You ain’t so bad to look at yourself, tiger,” Barry laughs as he steps into the bathroom, flicking on the light and grabbing a towel as he makes his way to the shower. He slips his pants off as he walks. Oliver looks away, but not fast enough to miss the tantalizing roundness of his ass. 

The shower flicks on and Oliver sits on the bed, staring at the dresser and the photographs. At some point he takes off the wedding band and turns it over and over in his hand, running the pad of his finger over _“Chosen”_. 

He tries to set his mind on the intel he’s gathered. Tries to draw conclusions. Tries to draw up a plan. Should he explore more of his surrounding area first? Should he confide in Barry? 

A hand gently lays over his and he looks up. Barry is standing before him in nothing but a towel, water droplets dripping from his hair and sliding down his shoulders and collarbone. “Oliver?” 

Oliver opens his mouth but can’t bring himself to say anything. Doesn’t know where to start. Keeps getting distracted by how the towel falls below Barry’s belly button and hips. 

Barry takes the ring from him, runs fingertips on the back of Oliver’s hand, down his scarred fingers, over the gnarled knuckles. And then he slowly, reverently, puts the ring back on Oliver’s finger. 

Oliver finds himself standing, catching Barry at the waist when he tries to step back, callouses rasping on smooth, clean skin. They’re so close, nose-to-nose, breath dancing between them. 

“Oliver?” Barry asks again, in a whisper, seeming unable to find his own voice but that’s okay because Oliver can’t find his either. Instead, he runs his hands up Barry’s sides, causing the man to shudder and gasp. Oliver trails up the body until he’s cradling Barry’s face in his hands. Barry’s lips part, maybe to say something, but Oliver doesn’t give him the chance (doesn’t give himself the chance to hesitate… if this is a dream, then let him _dream_ ). 

He’s tentative at first, a shy brush of lips, because he’s only ever kissed a couple of men and definitely not since before Lian Yu and this is _Barry_ and he gets unexpectedly nervous right as he leans in. But Barry’s lips part so easily, so pliantly, and suddenly Oliver is all hunger and need and desperate hope. He feels Barry moan and reach up to clutch at him as he presses in closer, the dampness from his skin seeping into Oliver’s shirt. 

When he releases Barry the man is panting, flushed, eyes wide like he’s seeing Oliver for the first time today. His lips are reddened, chest rising and falling so deliciously that Oliver can’t resist kissing him again, slower but no less domineering. 

“Oliver,” Barry whispers again, bringing their foreheads together, looking into his eyes like he can unbury everything that Oliver is in one look. 

Oliver steps backwards, putting needed space between them, but tugs teasingly at the towel. “You wearing this to bed?” 

“Goddamned tease,” Barry scoffs and then reaches down, curling fingers into Oliver’s belt loops and tugging on those. “You planning on sleeping in these?” 

“You think you’re cute,” Oliver observes and Barry smiles at him, tongue curling behind his teeth. 

“I know I am. C’mon… bed. Tired. Alien invasion. Ow.” 

They change quickly, Oliver not stumbling as much as he did in the kitchen, remembering which drawer he’d seen his sleepwear earlier. When he turns around Barry is already crawling in bed. Beastie lays with her back against Barry, exposing her belly, and Barry laughs as he rubs it, burying is face into the fur of her neck. Ed is laid out in Oliver’s—on the other side of the bed, looking challengingly at Oliver while his tail goes _thump-thump-thump_. 

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” Oliver asks the room at large and Barry rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t be such a baby. Come on guys, move,” Barry addresses the latter part to the dogs. Beastie obeys immediately, jumping off the bed and curling up in the pallet on the floor. Ed is slower, stretching languidly, and only hops off after Barry gives a snap of his fingers. 

“They listen to _you_ ,” Oliver mumbles as he slowly crawls in, still inexplicably nervous to lay down next to Barry. 

“Ed listens to you. Usually. Sometimes. When he feels like it.” 

Oliver eases in to the bed, ignoring the pull on the wound on his back, thinking himself an idiot with a death wish but unable to resist another touch of skin, maybe another kiss, maybe more. 

“You’re asleep already?” He asks, incredulous, because Barry’s eyes are already closed and breathing is already evened out. 

His eyes flutter but don’t fully open. “Do ‘vrything fasst,” he mumbles. “C’mere. Cold.” 

Oliver pulls the covers around them. He reaches out. Hesitates. Barry huffs, irritable with his slowness, and curls into him. His skin is warm and smells clean. 

Oliver reaches up, runs the back of his rough knuckles over Barry’s skin. 

“Okay,” Barry sighs, put-upon. “You talked me into it. Kiss. More. Now.” 

“Bossy.” 

“There’s a role-reversal for ya, am I right—" 

Oliver kisses him again, exploring. Desire for this man thrums under his skin, makes him want to dig fingerprints into Barry's body, to leave some kind of mark, some kind of impression that _he was here_ and, for a few hours, _he had this_. 

Barry tangles their legs together, buries warm hands under Oliver’s shirt. 

Oliver wants more—he wants so much more—but this is… this is probably far enough. Barry _isn’t_ his, not really (not yet?). And Oliver is living a lie—he’s letting _Barry_ live a lie with him (he’s always pretending, an imposter in his own story). 

Barry’s kisses seem to slow with his and when they pull back from each other Barry is looking at him. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Barry asks, pressing his forehead against Oliver’s once again. 

No. “Yes,” he says with a thin smile. 

Barry opens his mouth. Stops. Clearly changes gears. “We haven’t thought up a new tradition for us yet. For New Year’s.” 

Oliver glances at the window. The light is still dim but he knows it’s only just now approaching noon, if the clocks downstairs and on the nightstand are to be believed. “We got time.” 

He looks back to Barry, but his mouth is slack with sleep. He kisses those lips once. Twice. 

He stays awake for a long time. Listening. Waiting. No threat ever comes. Barry doesn’t change in his arms. Doesn’t fade away. The wound stays on his back. The dogs breathe heavy. One snores. One whines softly in sleep. Barry murmurs once, shifts further into Oliver. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

** 

He wakes in the foundry. He’s no longer in his Arrow armor and a look at his watch tells him that some time has passed. He stands up, alert, ready to fight, (body missing the warm hum of another), before he realizes that the wound on his back is gone. He runs a hand over his face, finds a glass surface to catch his reflection. He’s twenty-nine again. 

“You good, man?” Digg asks him as he suits up to face Zytle. Roy watches him, quiet and calculating, while Felicity looks at him with wide eyes. “You were… confusing earlier. Distant.” 

Oliver's lost time here and he doesn’t know how much, doesn’t remember anything but falling asleep and his strange dream. He certainly has no memories of interacting with his team between then and now. But he _plays along_ anyway (he's always pretending). “Must’ve been the vertigo. I’m good now.” 

They stop Zytle. Digg and Lyla have a baby girl. Felicity walks away from him. 

Left in the hospital hallway, watching the ghost of Felicity leaving again and again, his phone rings. 

It’s Barry Allen. An _impossible_ Barry Allen who runs with lightning. 

(He thinks of the suit he saw in his dream, with the lightning emblem on the chest, and he says, _“I think the lightning chose you.”_ ) 

Barry smiles at him almost like the one in his dream did and Oliver thinks, for one absurd second, that maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. 

Then, long after lightning trails after Barry in the distant horizon, he gets another phone call. 

Sara’s dead. 

He thinks of her in the photos on the mantel in his dream. She’d aged with him there. But she can’t anymore because she’s gone. 

So, it was only a dream, after all. An illusion of a home and welcome that Oliver will never have. 

** 

He wakes up to someone drooling on him. 

He smiles, even before opening his eyes, because he’s back. 

A weird sense of double—triple?— _de ja vu_ fills him, as it had a few hours before, when he’d awoken in the past in an old edition of the foundry, feeling a few less aches than before, and missing Barry. He’d stumbled around, not knowing what time he was in, accidentally happening on a younger Digg and Felicity and then suddenly _knowing_. 

It’d been hard, but he’d been careful not to say or do anything that would change the future. A lot of bad things would happen, maybe some things that he could avoid, but he couldn’t risk the good things. William. Don. Dawnie. 

Barry. 

And he had plenty of warnings over the years, plenty of speedsters fucking with the timeline. He knew his part and he played it. 

He shifts, startling a little at the pain in his back before he remembers, _right… alien invasion yesterday—or was it the day before now?_ It wouldn’t be the holidays without one, he supposes. With that memory comes another one—a missile heading right for the newest rookies in the Legends crew _and William_. A streak of lightning and Barry _taking the projectile head on instead_. He remembers the scream—it had been his own—the explosion. The heat. Thinking _no, this can’t be it_ as he ran towards his husband—towards the sound of their son screaming Barry’s name. 

Distantly, he remembers living this day once before as his past self. He remembers being confused at Barry’s fading bruises, thinking it a dream. He remembers Dr. Snow—Caitlin—visiting. He knows Barry’s fine but he pulls the sheets aside to check anyway. 

The skin is completely new and healed. Barry will carry the pain and horror of the wound for a while longer—but he’s whole again. Oliver kisses Barry’s head, unaccountably grateful. 

He hears a suspicious snuffling sound at the end of the bed. He glances down to see both Ed and Beastie’s heads propped on the edge, big eyes imploring. 

Oliver gives them _a look_. Beastie huffs and immediately lies back down. Ed, older and far more obstinate, takes a while longer before he grudgingly joins Beastie. He smiles at the space they’d occupied. It’d only been a few hours, and he’s been gone from them before, but he had still missed them. 

He kisses Barry again, because he can, and reaches between them for Barry’s hand. The ring glints in the wan light and Oliver very gently works the wedding band off. He runs his fingers along the smooth curve, tilts it until he sees the inscription. 

_Hope_

When he looks back to his husband, Barry is awake and looking up at him, quiet and studious as his gaze travels from Oliver’s face, to where he’s holding Barry’s ring, and back up again. 

Wordlessly, Oliver replaces the ring on Barry’s finger, and kisses it. And then he kisses Barry chastely on the lips, like he’s just come home from a trip to the store instead of a trip twenty years into the past. 

Barry watches him the entire time and when Oliver leans back, he finally smiles, full of relief and wonder. “You’re back.” 

Oliver raises his eyebrows, lifting a hand to run his thumb along Barry’s mouth and jaw. Idly, he remembers his past doppelgänger doing the same. “Do you know what happened?” 

“I’m not too sure,” Barry confesses. “At first… at first I just thought it was a bad day. Yesterday—yesterday was bad, I know that. I messed up. Got really hurt. You got hurt, too. Sometimes it’s hard after a day like yesterday. Sometimes you get distant. Sad. That’s what you were like today.” 

“But then?” 

“But then you kissed me.” 

Even when his past self had woken up all those years ago and thought the whole thing a dream, he could never quite forget or dismiss that kiss. He remembers it even now, years and years later. How illicit and sneaky it seemed, reckless and thrilling. How his body had responded to the warmth of Barry’s mouth, his moan, the scent of his skin and hair, the way his body had trembled in Oliver’s hands. 

Now, Oliver feels absurdly possessive. Jealous. _Of his past self._

“There’s my growly husband,” Barry laughs fondly, reading his look. He kisses Oliver on the nose. “I can't explain it. But that kiss was… it was you, but it wasn’t. What happened?” 

Oliver tells Barry what he knows, delighting in the way his husband’s face grows thoughtful, eyes becoming distant as he contemplates the _science_ behind Oliver's tale. 

“But why didn’t your _body_ travel time, too? Why did you _Freaky Friday_?” He hums. “Every instance of time travel thus far has always been—" 

He kisses Barry then because, well, because it’s just so freaking cute that he still _tries_ to understand their crazy life. Oliver would like to say he's given up on it a long time ago—about the time that a boy who saved his life woke up from a coma able to do the _impossible_. But Barry's right. This time jump was wholly unusual, meaning that whoever was behind it was likely extremely powerful and could be a potential threat to him and his family. However, that problem could wait just a little longer. 

He has a weird sense of _de ja vu_ again when Barry hums into his kiss and lazily opens up for him. He remembers his past self kissing _his_ Barry, the way his husband had nearly given out at the knees, and the kiss quickly changes mood as he falls upon Barry, hungry to consume him, to claim him, to hold on and never let go. 

Barry groans, rocks into him. When they part his husband’s head falls against him, warm breaths fluttering against his collarbone. “You’re so weird—jealous of _yourself_ ,” Barry declares, but follows his words with sweet kisses up Oliver’s neck and jaw. “But I guess I love you anyway. Hey—" he leans back, brow furrowed. “I just realized. We had different first kisses.” 

"What?" 

"Well, your first kiss with me was past you and future me. When I kissed you the first time, you'd already kissed me." 

Oliver huffs a short laugh under his breath. "What is our life?" He asks, because he isn't even baffled by Barry's observation. 

"It's a pretty good one," Barry shrugs, watching as Oliver strokes his belly, tracing over injuries that are no longer there. "How's your back?" 

"I'm fine." 

"Ah," Barry nods knowingly and starts making movements to get out of bed. "I'll get the painkillers." The sheets move, sending a cool draft over Oliver's skin that he hates so he grabs Barry and pulls him back in with an _"oomph"_. 

"No," Oliver grumbles into Barry. "Stay." 

"Bossy," Barry laughs but remains still and patient while Oliver resumes his tactile study of his stomach, fingers outlining the gashes and cuts as he remembered them, knuckles pressing gently where the bruises were. 

"What do we even do without kids," Barry sighs. "By now we're playing board games and wearing silly glasses and hats and stuffing grapes in our mouths and trying to keep Dawnie from sneaking champagne." 

Oliver hums thoughtfully. "But they'll be here tomorrow with Iris for New Year's Day," he reassures even though he misses them so deeply he aches. His hand runs over Barry's hip and to his left hand, where he traces around the wedding band there before wandering back up to Barry's stomach. 

"Yeah," Barry mutters, still mopey. 

Oliver scoots down and leans over, starts filling in the patterns he'd traced on Barry's skin with his lips and tongue. Barry gasps, hand coming up to cradle the back of his neck. 

"Well," Oliver says reasonably into his skin. "We can start a new tradition." 

"Go on," Barry chuckles, voice already raspy. 

"This, for starters," Oliver says as he kisses around Barry's belly button. 

"This...?" Barry prompts. Oliver noses teasingly around the waistband of his sweatpants before kissing his way back up. "Oh, okay, 'This'," Barry says like a man happening upon an epiphany. "'This' is... a good possibility. Anything else?" 

"Well," Oliver says, leaning up on an elbow and looking up at his husband. The color on Barry's cheeks is high and Oliver catches him with his bottom lip still caught between his teeth. "I was thinking—" he reaches up and covers Barry's mouth with his hand before some cutting remark can spill out. Smile lines frame Barry's eyes. "Let's start bringing in the New Year in a new place in the world. What do you think? Rome this year. Grand Canyon the next. Paris. Tahiti." 

Barry reaches up, removes Oliver's hand from his mouth and brings it back down, winding his fingers through Oliver's. His playful look has been replaced by a close-lipped, small smile that is so beautiful Oliver can't even look at it. 

"What?" He asks. 

"Nothing, I—yeah. That sounds like a good new tradition." Barry folds over and Oliver raises higher on his elbow to meet his kiss. "Hey!" Barry says excitedly, leaning back. "We have _super speed_ —we can bring in the New Year in at least four—" 

Oliver feels himself pale as he realizes his mistake. "No, Barry—" 

"—maybe five or even six—new places each year!" 

"No—" 

"Maybe even more than that! If we do, say, fifteen each year—" 

"Barry— _babe_ —" 

"Then I wonder how many years it'll take—" 

Oliver sighs and, resolving to take desperate measures, crawls up the bed. 

"—to cover the whole world, we could—" 

Oliver kisses his husband until they're both breathless.

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I'd bring in 2018 with some good old-fashioned time travel, snugs, doggos, and lots of kissing. :)  
>    
> [I be here on Tumblr. ](https://wonderingtheblue.tumblr.com/)


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